Report Develops a Framework for U.S. Census Bureau to Leverage New Data Sources

In response to mounting challenges, the U.S. Census Bureau is exploring the viability of new data sources.

Summary

A recent study by the Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory (SDAL) focuses on leveraging external data sources to enhance official statistics and products produced by the U.S. Census Bureau. External data in the context of this study means data that are external to the federal statistical system. Leveraging External Data Sources to Enhance Official Statistics and Products encompasses the theory and methods capable of capturing, repurposing, and integrating these external data sources.

The U.S. Census Bureau faces increasing challenges in the development of statistical products, especially where the bureau must elicit survey respondent participation. Declining participation has increased the costs and challenges of survey research. At the same time, the current data revolution has created the expectation for federal agencies to provide timelier and more granular data, especially with geographic detail.

Two specific case studies were conducted, housing and education, to inform the data framework development and to begin the process of characterizing the fitness-for-use of external data sources. The external sources of data used were county property records from two jurisdictions in Virginia and data from the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) for five states.

Report

The main report presents a process to discover, inventory, acquire, profile, prepare, link, explore, model, and assess the fitness-for-use of the external data for statistical analyses and products.

The Dynamic Report Appendix is a Collaborative Wiki, an innovative approach that allowed the SDAL and Census teams to share knowledge, collaborate, and distribute information. Please double-click the index.html file contained in this download to begin exploring the Wiki.